


My anaconda don't want done unless you got scones hun

by AidaRonan



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Barista Bucky Barnes, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Coffee, Coffee Shops, Comedy, Happy Steve Bingo, Honestly mature is probably stretching it for the rating, I don't think I've ever used the word 'dick' this much in a non-E fic, M/M, and T would be fine, but I don't think it's THAT bad?, but I say "dick" just sooo many times, latte art gone awry, mild warning for secondhand embarrassment, several dick jokes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 23:12:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16861852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AidaRonan/pseuds/AidaRonan
Summary: The barista's latte art doesn't quite go as planned. Given the day Steve's been having, it kinda figures.





	My anaconda don't want done unless you got scones hun

**Author's Note:**

> I meant for this to be for Happy Steve Bingo for my "coffee" square, but I asked for a card, forgot to check for said card forever, and also am just who I am as a person. 
> 
> Based on a [Daily AU](http://dailyau.tumblr.com/post/180449611235/i-work-as-a-barista-in-a-coffee-shop-you-frequent) prompt.

If dicks were some sort of commodity, Steve would have a veritable surplus. An entire back storeroom full of dicks that he just can't seem to move. It's like that time that Natasha followed him around for two weeks because he asked her to train him in how to recognize tails and give them the slip. Except instead of Natasha, it's just a pile of dicks metaphorically stacked on top of each other in a trench coat.  
  
And he's not learning a damn thing. Well, not a damn thing that's useful anyway.    
  
It starts with a team meeting at Stark Tower. They're discussing their last fight against a group led by a man who has, in the interim, been identified as a Mr. Dick Newsance of New Jersey.

Seriously.

No wonder he tried to blow his way into a bank vault with an experimental weapon stolen from a SHIELD convoy. Having a name like that when you're already from Jersey is just begging for a supervillain origin story. Or a "random Tuesday afternoon villain everyone will forget after they're finished memeing it" origin story at any rate. 

The Avengers run through the mission business as usual, reviewing their weak points, discussing training strategies and any tech needs. They get stuff off their chest that’s bothering them as well. Bruce apologizes for nearly taking Clint’s head off with a tractor tire. Tony apologizes for not making the experimental weapons he makes for SHIELD a little harder for random strangers to use and vows to fix that. And so on, until Steve chimes in.

“Listen guys," Steve says, "I know I let that henchman slip by me, and I just wanted to apologize for jeopardizing the mission. It was a pretty big boner."

This prompts Tony to actually spray coffee out of his mouth like a bottle of motor oil being tossed into a wood chipper. Natasha, who rarely gets caught unaware by anything, finds herself unwittingly in the splash zone. She glares at both Tony and Steve in turn, her face and hair dripping onto the table.

“It was a big _what_?” Clint wheezes, already laughing so hard he can barely breathe. Next to him, Bruce is turning multiple shades of red, a vein in his forehead bulging. He looks two seconds from Hulking out, his fist pressed against his mouth. He coughs.

“Did you do that on purpose, Spangles?”

“Do what on purpose? Let the hench-”

“No, no, no one cares about that. Shit happens, blah blah blah. No, the boner, Dick thing. You know.” Tony waves his hand like that’s all the explanation that’s needed.

Steve doesn’t know. He very much doesn’t know.

“What does Dick have to do with me making a boner?”

Clint slides off his chair like microwaved peanut butter, disappearing under the conference table. Bruce actually leaves the room, gasping out, “I can’t” on his way out.

“Jarvis, save this conversation and make it impossible to delete without at least ten different confirmation prompts and a retinal scan.”

“Tony.”

“Of course, sir.”

“Steve, please tell me you haven’t used ‘boner’ like that in a Tweet,” Natasha says, having appropriated the purple hoodie on the back of Clint’s chair to wipe her face. Clint probably hasn’t even noticed, still coming down from a fit of laughter somewhere on the floor. They might never see him again at this rate.

“Rock, Flag -n- Eagle, please tell me you’ve used ‘boner’ _exactly_ like that in a Tweet.”

“Jarvis,” Steve says. “What’s, uh, the definition of ‘boner’ these days?”

“Most commonly, sir, the term ‘boner’ is used to describe an erection,” Jarvis starts, and Steve turns about thirty shades of pink. “It can also mean a mistake, which I believe is how you intended it there, Captain. In addition-”

“That’s good, J,” Tony says.

Beneath the table, Clint chokes out, “’ _What does Dick have to do with me making a boner_?’” and starts on another fit of laughter. Natasha presses her lips together very tightly, eyes glittering.

“Yeah, yeah, make fun of the old guy because words have changed in seventy years,” Steve says, but it’s no use.

Tony’s already brought down the projector screen for a playback.

* * *

The next dick incident (dickcident?) hits a little after lunch time. A few weeks back Steve and Natasha conditionally called a truce on her good-willed attempts at nudging him back into the dating game. The condition was that she’d stop trying to set him up if Steve agreed to having a profile on a dating site of her choosing.

And so by this turn of events, Steve has something called Konnekt sitting on his library between “Instagram” and “Messages.” Natasha in her infinite wisdom, of course, chose an app that Steve would get messages on without having to do a darn thing past setting up the profile. 

Which is how he finds a quiet ping hitting his notifications while he’s got about half a sub stuffed into his maw, chewing happily through layers of pepperoni, salami, and provolone, all while wondering if the server recognizes him well enough that ordering and actually eating a full eight inch cheesecake at the table wouldn’t be weird. 

Eh, he’ll get it to go.

Firmly decided on his dessert option, he swipes open a message from a guy named Chris P. He swears every guy he meets in this century is a Chris. Or a James.

“So, an artist huh? Maybe you can draw me like one of your French girls.” The message is complete with a painting emoji and a miniature artist’s palette.

Steve assumes he’s referencing the Mona Lisa since she currently hangs in the Louvre. He won’t correct him on the fact that Da Vinci was Italian and only happened to be in France with said painting at the time of his death. Because as it’s been pointed out to him, things like that are ‘a little insufferable, Steve.’

Instead, he decides to play along. Chris P. is cute enough, even if Steve doesn’t usually go for other blonds. So Steve flirts back instead of brushing him off. Natasha would be proud. Maybe he'll even tell her later. 

“I wouldn’t mind that so much. I’ve actually got a little free time this afternoon if you wanna send me a reference photo.” Steve adds a winking face for good measure.

A few overlarge bites of sandwich later, and Steve gets a notification that he’s received a picture on Konnekt.

He opens it, fully expecting the guy in some kind of static portrait pose, maybe attempting the famous ambiguous smile. 

The picture he gets instead is, well-

A while back Steve had been privy to his first Internet trend. ‘Goldbluming’ is what they’d called it, based on an actor in some dinosaur film Clint has since forced him to watch. Within days of the trend starting, Steve received a few dozen tweets asking him to do the famous pose in front of the Statue of Liberty. Then he’d gotten roped into _actually_ doing it when Natasha convinced some billionaire other than Tony to donate a dollar for every retweet to a children’s cancer research charity. Several other billionaires, actors, musicians, and politicians offered to match.

And so Steve had been a good sport, throwing up the photo in full uniform. Thus #Capbluming and #Libertybluming were both born, and the charity received more money in one week than it had in over ten years.

The picture he gets from Chris P. is a lot like that photo. Except there’s no uniform, or anything else for that matter. Just a suggestive smile and a hand wrapped around certain parts of his anatomy.

Steve chokes on his sandwich and promptly closes out of the app, pushing his phone away from him across the table like dick pics are somehow communicable.

He pointedly ignores it until he’s done eating; he pointedly ignores Chris P. indefinitely. 

* * *

Really, Steve should’ve stayed home after he finished the cheesecake. Double really, Steve should have expected something dick-related to happen again considering the day that he’s had.

And yet, when he walks into the Brooklyn Red Star coffee shop for an evening pick-me-up (which is really more of an evening calorie burst, because caffeine is about as effective on him as alcohol), he does not expect to find anything but a cup of joe and a scone or six. 

The shop itself is homey and intimate, all the furniture mismatched in a way that feels deliberate and somehow works. It feels a lot like everything was picked up along the way from flea markets and thrift stores, a seamless hodgepodge of stools and overstuffed chairs, even a church pew. The counter itself also seems to be salvaged, the wood grain old and sturdy beneath the fairly modern cash register.

This late in the day, it’s pretty empty save a few folks scattered here and there on their laptops. They don’t even look up when the bell tinkles merrily over the door, focused on schoolwork and work work and the next great American novel.

Safe in his anonymity for now, Steve steps closer to the counter, eyes trained on a vintage blackboard mounted on the wall.

He briefly wonders what local school it originally came from. If somewhere behind the coffee menu and layers of weathering, there are faint traces of him working out arithmetic and avoiding the unimpressed gaze of Sister Martha.

While he’s looking at the board, he hears a voice and turns just in time to catch a flash of dark hair and a single eye peeking out of the back room.

“I’ll be right with ya, sorry.”

“No problem,” Steve says, focusing back on the actual menu. The handwriting differs from the standard items to more recent additions. Both the special of the day and the flavor of the month are written in the same looping script, decorated with little doodles of holly leaves and dancing gingerbread man.

Steve has yet to meet a coffee drink that he doesn’t like, though he could do without Chai lattes just fine. His eyes dart back and forth across the blackboard.

“Sorry again,” the barista says, and out of the corner of his eye, Steve watches him set a tray of clean cups and saucers down on the back counter. “You got any questions?” 

“Just trying to make a decision,” Steve says, turning toward the guy with a smile and a shrug. Only, he doesn’t quite manage it, faltering somewhere around the time he actually sees what he—James, of course his name is James—looks like.

And he might not have understood the modern meaning of “boner” until that morning, but he’s suddenly painfully aware of why all those tweets he probably shouldn't be tagged in talk about “thirst." His mouth has gone dry almost instantaneously.

James looks like a movie star, the kind of fella Steve would’ve seen on posters locked in longing embraces with Garbo or Hepburn. His jawline begs for sharp charcoal lines and deep shading, a perfect little dimple taking up residence in the center. His hairstyle wouldn’t have been out of place on any street in pre-war Brooklyn, probably pomaded to perfection. Steve pictures a little red tin tucked away in a medicine cabinet somewhere. 

Of course, the modern touches are there as well. The short stubble on James's chin would’ve maybe been acceptable after an all day shift at the docks, but certainly not in church. The skin-tight jeans leave very little of his shape to the imagination. However, the sweatshirt is the most glaringly modern thing of all, screen printed with looping red and green letters that declare James, "single and ready to jingle." 

Noted. Wait, what exactly does "jingle" mean these days?

“Well, I know a lot of people get sick of all the holiday flavors,” James says, “but the eggnog latte is pretty killer.”

“Is it?”

“That latte plus my employee discount are gonna be why these jeans won’t fit me come New Year’s.”

“Oh, I don’t know, you look like you take pretty good care of yourself.”

It just slips out, Steve swears it does. Steve would never ever _intentionally_ flirt with a service worker while they’re at work. Not even one who looks like James.

Rogers, you know nothing about this guy. He could be anybody. He could be a spy or a murderer. Or worse, a Republican. Get it together.

Two impossibly attractive eyebrows move slightly upward. Steve clears his throat, debating between pretending he didn’t say anything or apologizing for the next twenty minutes. He settles for ordering.

“Eggnog latte, it is.”

“Anything else?”

“Scone?” Steve says, somehow managing to sound confused by the existence of breakfast pastries.

“Gingerbread, cranberry white chocolate, honey apricot, blueberry, or cinnamon apple?”

“Surprise me,” Steve says, already fumbling for his wallet. James steps to the register.

“That’ll be $8.53.”

Steve forks over a twenty and shoves all the change down into the tip jar. James clearly sees him but doesn’t say a word about it, washing his hands and reaching for one of the clean mugs. And maybe Steve should look at something other than him before he makes all this worse. He opts for pulling out his phone.

A Chris H. and James R. have both waved at him on Konnekt. He sighs and hops on Twitter instead. Someone has sent him a picture of a dog in a Cap costume sprawled in front of another dog dressed as the Statue of Liberty. Steve dishes out one of his rare retweets for that one before his eyes wander back up to the barista.

James seems to be finishing the latte with an artful pour from a metal carafe, clearly attempting some kind of latte art, his tongue caught between his lips in concentration. Which is, wholly unfair, but who is Steve gonna complain to? Yelp?

_Great atmosphere, but the barista James was too impossibly handsome and that hurt my feelings. 3/5 stars._

Like he can hear Steve’s thoughts, James chooses that moment to look up at him, his face contorted in a way that Steve can’t quite place. Confusion? James glances down at the latte and then back up at Steve, and okay, that look Steve can place.

That Look is a drawing Steve did of his mother at sixteen that looked slightly more like a fairy tale hag than an actual person. That Look is his first ever doodle of a dog, the end result more bovine than canine. That Look is his first post-serum drawing—an attempt at Peggy that he ripped to pieces and lit on fire lest she ever think that she actually looked anything like it.

Steve tries to give James a smile that says he won’t judge him for an art attempt gone awry. He steps up to take his latte, which makes James go a bit wide-eyed. God, his eyes are stunning. Steve’s always worked better in black and white, but he might have to break open the fancy case of art pencils Nat won’t admit she bought him.

He's already thinking about what colors could replicate that particular shade of gray-blue when he looks down at his beverage. Almost immediately, Steve's eyes snap back to James, who visibly grimaces. There, in a horrifying moment of eye contact, Steve can feel himself turn pink, the warmth spreading across his cheeks and creeping down his neck.

He looks back at the latte, confirming what he saw before. There, on top of the drink, is what looks an awful lot like a penis. A fact made all the more horrible by the offshoots of white foam that circle down around the sides of the cup, the appearance a lot like a fire hydrant struck by a stray arc reactor blast.

Steve scratches at the back of his neck and looks up at James, ready to accept whatever apology or explanation he gives. After all, dick or no dick, it still wasn’t deliberate, and his resolve not to judge an art disaster still stands.

He’s just not expecting James to have changed his entire demeanor in ten seconds.

Which is a thing he has done, the grimace replaced by a crooked grin and an effortless lean against the counter. When Steve meets his eyes this time, he actually winks, before raising one eyebrow in a challenge. Like he’s daring Steve to say aloud what the art attempt actually looks like.

Without breaking eye contact, he slides a plate across the counter, the sound of the glass scraping across wood far too loud in the quiet shop.

“The likeness is uncanny, I know,” James says.

“To what?” Steve chokes out, so dumbfounded that he knows he’s gotta look like a bit like fish that just found out the worms actually weren’t just free food.

“Pal, wouldn’t you like to know?” James shrugs, and then he picks up the carafe and turns away, busying himself with cleanup while Steve gapes and finally manages to turn and find a seat.

He stays on his phone the entire time he drinks the latte. He stares at it even while he’s eating the gingerbread scone and can only scroll with the back of one of his knuckles without smearing crumbs and saliva all over the screen.

It’s full Steve Rogers determination that has him avoiding even glancing at the barista until he’s finished, taking his dishes up to the little area on the counter designated for returns.

“Everything good?” James asks, giving him an easy smile.

“You were right about the latte,” Steve says. Because the eggnog was really good, especially paired with the gingerbread. It was like eating Christmas.

“Oh, did you figure out the resemblance?” James asks, and Steve turns pink again. But he’s ready this time.

“I did. Took a minute to see what you were going for, but I think you really captured his, uh, essence.”

Across from him, two dark eyebrows knit together.

“Whose?”

“The President, obviously,” Steve says, and James actually throws his head back. His laugh fills up the small coffee shop, startling awake the poor college student who’d slumped over on her physics textbook.

It’s a gorgeous laugh, warm and full. Steve thinks of comfort foods and his mother’s toffee pudding. Of fire escapes on warm spring afternoons. He’s still watching James laugh, shoulders shaking, when something inside of lurches sideways.

Quietly Steve thinks, _oh no_.

The feeling is as warm as the sound filling up the coffee shop, and it instantly brings forth images of thick brunette curls and fiery red lips, of a biting wit and a mean right hook.

“Christ, the history books never said you were funny,” James says, grabbing for Steve’s dishes.

“Yeah, well,” Steve starts, quickly finding himself again, “it’s your solemn duty now to spread the word. Just leave out the part where I spent this entire time thinking of that joke to try to impress you.”

James throws on a fake serious face and gives Steve a rigid salute before relaxing again.

“At least it worked,” James says.

At least it… oh. _Oh_.

Steve tries to play it cool. He holds his hand out across the counter.

“Steve Rogers.”

“Bucky Barnes,” James says, and Steve’s eyes flicker to his name tag. Bucky must catch it. “James Buchanan Barnes is what’s on my birth certificate. Can’t walk outside and throw a rock without hitting another James though.”

“Yeah, you couldn’t in my day either.” Steve shrugs. “So am I one of those special kinda assholes if I ask the barista for his phone number?”

Bucky lowers his voice, conspiratorial, “Is Captain America allowed to say ‘asshole’ like that?” There’s nothing there that speaks of fawning, just an acknowledgement that he knows who Steve is paired with some gentle ribbing.

“Hey, fuck you, pal, I’m from Brooklyn,” Steve retorts, and Bucky laughs again, holding up his hands in mock surrender. 

“Alright, alright, hand me your phone, Steve from Brooklyn.” Bucky holds out his hand. “Oh, Chris P. sent you a message on Konnekt. You wanna get that?”

“Shit,” Steve says, already reaching across to swipe it away. It takes him three tries and somehow he accidentally turns on the flashlight in the process. “It’s not. I’m- Natasha. Friend of mine, she… He sent me a dick pic. I didn’t want a dick pic. I maybe haven’t answered yet, because it was kind of my fault. But I didn’t—Did you know ‘boner’ used to mean something _way_ different in my day?”

Bucky blinks at him, his lips turning up slowly.

“I did know that actually,” Bucky says. “You don’t get a name like James Buchanan unless your moms are a couple of history nerds.”

“Ah.”

“In fact, if it gets to that point, feel free to tell your friends we met when I made a boner boner. It was supposed to be a leaf by the way. If you were wondering.”

Steve snorts and accepts his phone back, the screen open on Bucky’s contact. His name comes complete with a coffee cup emoji and an eggplant off to the side. Steve hits the edit button and adds in the one that looks like old film reels before shoving the phone in his back pocket. 

Elsewhere in the shop, the bell over the door jingles softly. Steve glances back to see a couple of teenagers already fixated on the menu board. 

“I guess I’ll call you later. Or, uh, text?”

“I’ll answer either way.” Bucky smiles softly, already moving down the counter toward the register.

Back on the street outside, Steve pulls his phone out and disables his Konnekt account. Natasha will probably know he did it within minutes if she doesn't know already, but that's okay. She'll get over it.   
  
He whistles some old Fats Waller tune his entire walk home, where he discovers that someone has defaced the outside wall of his building with a garish hot pink penis.   
  
Steve tilts his head at it and thinks with amused sort of pity that Bucky’s was somehow better, unintentional as it was, and then slips inside. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come bother me on [Tumblr](http://bisexualstarbucky.tumblr.com/) or [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/bistarbucky).


End file.
